Saturday, November 16, 2013

Newtown Votes with Its Pistol Permits

Applications for
pistol permits in Newtown are up 110 percent in the wake of the mass shooting
at Sandy Hook Elementary school, according to Connecticut State Police who
issue the permits.

It would be an error
to suppose that the increase has been driven solely by restrictive gun laws
written by the General Assembly in response to the mass murders.

After having
produced a budget in the absence of any input from Republican leaders in the
General Assembly, Governor Dannel Malloy felt compelled to include Republicans
when his signature gun control legislation was in its formative process. Republicans
who boisterously supported Mr. Malloy’s gun control bill were put in Coventry
once again when Mr. Malloy shaped his second budget. Somewhat in the manner of
a mistreated yet faithful wife, Republican leaders have since complained about
the unusual abusive treatment.

No doubt some of the
increase in pistol permits, both in Newtown and across the state, may be
attributed to a fear on the part of pistol purchasers that bothersome legal restrictions
would make the acquisition of pistols more difficult. Democrat and Republican
leaders in the General Assembly, who pushed through their legislation without
benefit of the long delayed criminal report on the Sandy Hook shootings, argued
that their legislation was not unusually restrictive, but rather common sense
measures that would make future criminal assaults on schools and other gun free
areas in Connecticut less likely. And, in any case, the new regulations are
soft on pistols, hard on long rifles, not the weapon of choice among up and
coming criminals and gangbangers in the cities.

Connecticut gun
owners in the state have brought suit against the Malloy bill, and some gun
manufactures in the state, feeling Mr. Malloy’s icy breath on their necks, have
pulled up stakes and moved South.

At one point during
the unobstructed passage of Mr. Malloy’s gun control measures, the governor
said of Connecticut gun manufacturers, “What this is about is the ability of
the gun industry to sell as many guns to as many people as possible—even if
they [the purchasers] are deranged, even if they are mentally ill, even if they
have a criminal background. They don’t care. They want to sell guns.” A
business arrangement that allowed Connecticut gun manufacturers to vet
production mock ups with the state police to assure that the product on the
production line met legal specifications was also terminated, a not too gentle
reminder to Connecticut gun manufacturers tagged by Mr. Malloy as indifferently
selling weapons to the mentally ill were no longer welcomed in “Revolutionary
Connecticut,” once known as the “Provision State” for having produced munitions for George Washington’s beleaguered
army during the Revolutionary War.

A similar spike in
pistol permits occurred in Connecticut following a murderous assault by two
paroled prisoners on a family in Cheshire, in the course of which two women
were raped and three victims, a mother and two teen aged daughters, were
murdered when the paroled prisoners set a house on fire, presumably to cover
their crimes.

That earlier spike
in the purchase of defensive weapons was occasioned by what some considered an
insufficient response by police. In rural areas in the state, police response
time may be considerably diminished.

In addition to the
insufficient response time of police when heinous crimes occur in rural areas
in the state, the spike in purchases of defense weapons is caused in part by the
uncertainty that precedes legislation restricting weapon purchases. If tomorrow
the Connecticut’s General Assembly were to convene to consider regulation
restricting the purchase of cars, there would be a run on the purchase of cars
in Connecticut, and no sensible governor would attribute the spike in purchases
to a disposition on the part of car manufacturers to sell their product to
mentally ill drivers.

Part of the uncertainty
that caused the spike in gun purchases following the Sandy Hook mass murders
might have been dispelled by a reasonable release time of the criminal report,
which will contain necessary information that should have been used to support
the gun legislation produced by a data starved General Assembly.

Mr. Malloy –much,much too late – has now urged Danbury State Attorney
Stephen Sedensky to release the twice delayed criminal report. Mr. Sedensky has
attributed the report’s delay to “an ongoing criminal investigation,” though it
is unclear at this point that further investigation will lead to an arrest or
trial.

When or if Mr. Sedensky’s report is released, Mr. Malloy and General Assembly leaders
should insist that the final criminal report contain a sufficient justification
for a delay in the release of data that was necessary for the proper
construction of laws relating to gun restrictions, the safety of students in
Connecticut schools, the mental health provision of the final gun restriction
bill and, not incidentally, a just conformity of the final legislation to state
and federal constitutional law.